Friday, June 3, 2011

First Entry

I’ve been fighting depression since I was about twelve years old. It comes in waves – washing over my body, pulling me down, down, down deeper and deeper until I feel like I am about to drown. That’s the best way I can find to describe what happens to me, every now and then, sometimes in long spurts months – years even.

It’s been awhile though, since I’ve felt this way. I had almost forgotten what it felt like. I feel bad for my husband, who can’t understand, and has never been through this with me before. It’s hard to describe depression to someone who hasn’t ever felt it. It’s like describing the color red to someone who is colorblind. I feel sad for no reason, but I am not just sad, I am devastated. I can’t explain it and I can’t cure it on my own.

People have all sorts of opinions on anti-depressants, and my opinion is that people should keep their opinions on this subject matter to themselves. I went off my medication in college partly due to peer pressure. I had gotten a lot of negative feedback when people found out I was on anti-depressants. I think it is easy to say they do more harm than good when you have never been clinically depressed yourself.

I just started taking a new medicine after being off of anti-depressants for six years. That’s not to say I haven’t had bouts of depression or even severe depression in those six years, but rather that at this point in my life I realize that I need to take control of my own problems. No one likes to be around someone clinically depressed, furthermore most people don’t understand it and you end up losing a lot of friends. More importantly I want to be myself again. I want to be happy because I know I have so many reasons to be.

I have a “family blog” but I haven’t updated it in so long, this is mostly because Hollis and I live a seemingly boring family life. We don’t have children yet, and we probably won’t have children for at least another three years, we are really busy but not in an interesting – people will want to read about this – way. I wanted to start my own blog, a place where I can discuss what is going on in my head and in my life. I had an online journal in high school and it was really therapeutic.